Category Archives: Progression Photos

Some of these are terrible! None of them are finished. Some may never be finished, but that’s ok. Really!

January 1, 2018 12″ x 16″ acrylics, progress.

Jan 1. I started this first one on a background I did back in August. Which is just the most recent time (before this one!) that I decided i was really going to do painting for reals.

Jan 2, 2018 12″ x 16″ acrylics, progress. This is where I started and ended today

Jan 2. Started this one today with the left image completed. Also from last August! Anyway, I worked on it for a couple hours and ended up with the slightly fluffier, still far from complete, right side image.

Jan 3, 2018 16″ x 20″ acrylics, progress.

Jan 3. 16″ x 20″ is big! Though I’d like to do bigger. This one started with the blue background previously completed, you’ll never guess when! Last August.

January 4, 2018 9″ x 12″ acrylics, progress.

Jan 4. Terrible! Holy cow. I think the nose has some promise but otherwise pretty bad. Started this one on a white canvas. Painted a quick blue ground. Might try to rescue or might paint over. Going to need lots of canvas, after all.

Jan 5. Not too thrilled with this one either, after 3ish hours. We’ll have to see if I give this one another go. Either way, I think tomorrow it’s back to dogs. The fifth day was rough. My brain was telling me I could take a day off. But no. Nooooooo. Not giving up today. :)

Thanks so much for stopping in! If you leave a comment include your site so I can visit back.

Not that anyone asked, but I have not accepted any pet portrait commissions. For one thing, approximately a kajillion excellent artists are already doing those! Also, portraits are stressful.

Sharpie on Canvas Shoes, December 2017, Colorful Doodlin’

Sharpie Shoes, Dec 2017, 1 0f 3, www.theslumberingherd.com

Sharpie Shoes, Dec 2017, 2 0f 3, www.theslumberingherd.com

Sharpie Shoes, Dec 2017, 3 0f 3, www.theslumberingherd.com

My First Sharpie Shoes Ever, Stats:

Hours to complete: approx 15 (with Miss Marple or The Great British Baking Show reruns in the background).

Method: None! Just doodled. Drew some shapes. Colored stuff in. More shapes, more coloring. Most areas required multiple layers. It went quicker on the second shoe because I had a better idea what I wanted.

Reception: Quite nice. People are telling me to sell these. Probably not, though. Would have to charge… hmmm. Quite a lot. :D

p.s. Thank you Metafilter for the push to get back to my blog! Admittedly, a variety things probably need updating around here. Categories and tags, for instance. I don’t even. But we’ll see how it goes!

It’s been quite some time since my last post. It was a sad one. About my dog. But, I have continued drawing most every day, so here are some of my faves since my last post which was holy cow! August 21st. I do not know where the time goes! And I do not like it going!

That Time Scorpius Lost the Halloween Wager, 6″ x 8″ progress shots

Here is Scorpius, a baddie from the show Farscape who most certainly does NOT normally wear a bunny hat, made for AnnD for a Halloween secret swap! The four atcs below are from the same pack of swag!

Thanks so much for stopping by! I shall make no promises about forthcoming posts because I will post when I can. I do post recent art more frequently on my facebook art page. Hello and thank you to Paint Party Friday!

Daisy started as a sketch I considered using for a (requested) coloring page. I’ve been trying to practice/add more botanical elements as a way of making these recent portrait type pencil works more interesting.

You may remember these guys before the flowers:

Two in Flowers, 9″ x 12″ pencils

And more from the past couple weeks:

Ernestine in Cloche, Niles Each 9″ x 12″ pencils

I have started a gallery of recent pencil art and here is a link. You can also get there via the menu at the top of the page, on the far right. The gallery is a work in progress and not working perfectly quite yet. (I may try to find another portfolio-making widget.)

Some excitement at the blog this weekend! Apparently some Indian hackers were using my bandwidth for Indian porn. (Nothing any of my visitors would ever see. No, they prefer to be sneaky and use some behind-the-scenes BS! But my hosting peeps Dreamhost run a thing called Stop the Hacker! so they let me know there was a problem.) And I am SO lucky to live with an excellent computer programmer who can fix such things. And he did. The end. :D

So, instead of one or two nights like most of these 9×12 pencils I’ve been doing, I put in an extra couple days on this one for added depth and detail. Frequent visitors to this blog may recall my love of snoods!

And here is some of the rest of the gallery from the past couple weeks (with bird friends!):

Hamish with New Friend, Peko & Midori (click to enlarge)

Midge & Bordeaux, Lindy and Margaret (click to enlarge)

A few notes. So much smudging! In some cases, I have tried to remove the smudging (in Adobe Elements where I do most of my brightness corrections and resizing), but some still show more smudging that others. Also, I have included my blog address because while lots of people re-post images, many of them do not mean to “steal” but to share. Those sorts of folks will leave an identifier so I have included the link.

Friends, I must confess – I have THREE ink projects I have put off. The bad excuse is that I am in pencil mode! But the truth is that procrastination and fear of bad outcomes continue to bedevil me. That much said, I may have some inky things (and procrastination recovery to report) next time!

This one is feeling much more forced than the last one! Probably overthinking things. The black outline was not the best move, but it will probably see a lot of changes yet.

And these are two favorite recent sketches. I am finally using a piece of paper as a smudge guard. Hooray!

Horned Oracle, 9″ x 12″ pencil

Pavel’s Pet Portrait Palace, 9″ x 12″ pencil

I haven’t decided what to do with these, Copics won’t work with this much pencil and the Bristol is no good for acrylics. I could trace the outline on a new sheet, maybe. More likely I will just start the next one.

Wooo, I’ve been painting! And pretty big too, if you keep in mind I’ve been mostly drawing 2.5″ x 3.5″ art card size the last couple years.

Since my last progress shots post, some WordPress update business or another has removed my slideshow function. I may search out another for future posts, but here is a little gallery of shots. You can click on each to enlarge, but tragically you cannot page through them.

11″ x 14″ sketch

Step one, outline

Step two, filling in

Step three, new color

Step four, new color

Step five, background color

Step six, refining shapes

Step 7, adding detail

Step 8, shading and detail

So, I was pretty happy at step seven. The next day, after a couple hours working at it (with some frustrations!), what a big difference! I still have to fix up the background. Might just cover the splatters, or might add something new. Or might start the next painting! Here’s a sneak preview:

11″ x 14″ sketch on canvas board

Thanks so much for dropping in! Please, please feel free and encouraged to drop any and all acrylic painting tips in the comments. I’m a bit of a hack at it still, and probably will be for another few years. (But that’ s ok!) :-)

I am just going to come right out and tell you, I have not found, let alone joined, a life drawing class. I did get a new easel and started a 12″ x 16″ canvas. It shall probably be a cat in fancy clothes. I will let you know!

I turned around and August was mostly gone. I did a variety of oddments this past few weeks. The Dr. Who themed swap, above, as well as a variety of dogs, some in an older style and some experiments with Prismacolor pencils.